{"id":10865,"date":"2025-09-24T02:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T02:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2025\/09\/24\/skate-early-access-review\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T02:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T02:00:09","slug":"skate-early-access-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2025\/09\/24\/skate-early-access-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Skate Early Access Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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EA\u2019s official Skate FAQ<\/u><\/a> is very clear about what 2025\u2019s new early access iteration represents for the series as a whole. \u201cThis isn\u2019t a sequel, remake, or a remaster,\u201d states the brief explanation. \u201cIt\u2019s the evolution of the Skate franchise.\u201d The first part I wholeheartedly agree with. This is not Skate 4, and it certainly isn\u2019t a remake of the originals by any stretch of the imagination. The second part is not entirely untrue either: It is <\/em>an evolution, of sorts. That is, it\u2019s certainly changed. A lot. Unfortunately, this means this new version of Skate bears little semblance to the late-2000s originals I love \u2013 and I\u2019m currently finding it impossible to warm to its sanitised, homogenised, and monetised reinvention. Yes, Skate has evolved dramatically, but it\u2019s done so to blend into its free-to-play, service game-dominated surroundings \u2013 like moths in the sooty cities of the British Industrial Revolution. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever compared a game to an insect before, but perhaps it makes sense when I find it this repellant. <\/p>\n

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Before I get too deep into why it\u2019s offputting, there are a couple of true strengths that I can identify in Skate\u2019s early access launch \u2013 the first of which are the sound effects. When it comes to capturing the nuanced array of skateboarding sounds \u2013 the hiss of spinning wheels, the friction of plywood on varied surfaces, and the clink of metal on metal \u2013 the team has done a terrific job. Ignoring the music and dialogue (which I\u2019ll discuss later), Skate absolutely nails its sounds. This stuff is the symphony of skateboarding and, when you\u2019re in a real flow, there\u2019s an almost meditative rhythm to it. The pops and pings, the scrapes and squeaks \u2013 these sounds are just soothing, and I don\u2019t know how else to explain it.<\/p>\n

It must also be established that the feel of Skate, when you\u2019re on a board at least, is still supreme. I adore the wild, arcade wackiness of Tony Hawk\u2019s Pro Skater \u2013 and I respect the punishing, twin-stick precision required by the likes of skate sims like Session \u2013 but Skate\u2019s controls are my jam. Just about everything I crave is wrapped up in its approachable yet deceptively deep system. Tricks on the right stick, turning on the left, grabs on the triggers, and grinds on\u2026 how good you are at lining them up. There\u2019s a lot of depth to unlock once you get the hang of it. <\/p>\n

The feel of Skate, when you\u2019re on a board at least, is still supreme.<\/section>\n

Now, the new Skate doesn\u2019t quite <\/em>look and feel identical to the older games. Turning appears a little stiffer, and probably lacks a bit of the more pronounced and organic lean from the early Skate games. The grind assist is also considerably too sticky by default, and there\u2019s definitely jankiness present in the transition skating; I\u2019m experimenting with the pump settings but haven\u2019t quite cracked a consistent solution to always getting the momentum I want and not getting randomly bogged down. Skitching is absent, and there are other missing tricks. Overall, however, it\u2019s entirely familiar enough to be instantly intuitive to me as a returning player. At a minimum, Skate has done a fine job of reconstructing that buttery, legacy street skating feel from the original games. That\u2019s an important thing to bring back if you\u2019re going to use the classic name.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that\u2019s all it brought back.<\/p>\n

Streaming the Cube<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Making Skate an exclusively online experience was an immediate and utter mistake. During my first session on the day of its early access launch I was unceremoniously disconnected during a random challenge and kicked out of the map, back to the main menu. The error message here was comically emblematic of my thoughts on the overall situation. Something went wrong? Yes, something certainly went wrong with Skate. But it went wrong long before I started playing.<\/p>\n

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I am, of course, aware that server problems and queues are typical of day one of a new online game (although I\u2019m still waiting in queues the week after launch). The community has come to accept this compromise as the opposite side of the free-to-play coin. For me, this is uncharted territory. The last time I waited in an online queue I was buying concert tickets, but at least I got seats to Metallica out of it. Skate is giving me no such joy. It does not benefit from being an online-only live service. It has new priorities, like selling $25 clothing ensembles. To pass the downtime I played a bit of the existing Skate trilogy (all of which are parked on my Xbox courtesy of backwards compatibility and will work just fine offline today, tomorrow, and in 10 years time).<\/p>\n

In a deeply unfortunate twist, playing the new Skate is regularly just as annoying as not <\/em>being able to play it. From the get-go it\u2019s evident every shred of the personality of the originals has been ruthlessly and shamelessly cut away in favour of infantilised garbage. Every part of Skate has been corporatised and Disney-fied, from art style to attitude.<\/p>\n

Every part of Skate has been corporatised and Disney-fied, from art style to attitude.<\/section>\n

Remember the authentic human characters that accompanied your skater as you progressed through the story modes of the old games, who would blurt in sympathy as you tumbled down the dam for the tenth time, breaking every bone in your body? Well, forget anything like that. Your \u201cfilmer\u201d in the new Skate is\u2026 an AI app, called Vee, who just may be the single worst video game character I\u2019ve ever encountered. Vee\u2019s dialogue is beyond nauseating, and is delivered in a faux-robotic fashion that makes it doubly awful. It\u2019s essentially a simulation of AI slop \u2013 like having a friend that only speaks to you like they\u2019re reading the captions on a Tik-Tok video. The low-fi and realistic filmer approach of the old Skate games is greatly missed. In 2025, this could have been emulated easily by just giving us an in-game friend with a phone. Instead, we have an ill-conceived chatbot who regards my successful tricks as, \u201cAlgorithmic!\u201d, refuses to stop \u201cedu-skating\u201d me on the fact \u201cfooty\u201d means \u201cvideo footage,\u201d and mines 35-year-old LL Cool J songs for quips even my mum would wince at. \u201cYour female parent said knock those objectives out?\u201d Good grief.<\/p>\n

Holy Cow Oh My God<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sadly the \u201chuman\u201d cast is no better. They\u2019re saddled with an inauthentic, overwritten script stuffed with cringeworthy sentences no person would ever say aloud, and lines I\u2019m not even sure the voice actors quite understood before reading. Skate\u2019s fascination with the term \u201cskater eyes\u201d (which is inexplicably capitalised in the captions like some kind of proper noun) is simply baffling. It\u2019s referenced with such heavy regularity that it sounds like the name of an in-game function you can personally toggle on and off to highlight particular parts of the environment like Batman\u2019s Detective Vision (like certain things that are <\/em>automatically covered in a yellow mask during some challenges) but it isn\u2019t. It\u2019s just a hackneyed slang phrase Skate has invented and overuses far beyond the point of parody. <\/p>\n

Who says <\/em>the word \u201cBEEP\u201d instead of cursing, even mildly? Everything that’s even a fraction edgy or mature has been masked under layers of corporate coddling, like those soft, squishy curves that stop toddlers from splitting their heads on the corner of the kitchen bench. You can, I guess, mute the dialogue \u2013 but that doesn\u2019t make it immune from criticism. Besides, the dialogue is also just one part of a cavalcade of complaints I have about the current state of Skate.<\/p>\n

Why was it so important, for instance, to concoct an in-universe explanation for the fact that nobody in Skate\u2019s new city of San Vansterdam can suffer any injuries? Making skaters invincible thanks to the medical miracle of \u201cImpervaTEK\u201d doesn\u2019t make Skate better<\/em>; it just feels like it\u2019s here because some suit was worried about the optics of children playing a game where people tossing themselves off buildings might have to be depicted as being seriously hurt. As a result, Skate\u2019s traditional post-wipeout x-rays and bone-snapping sound effects are totally gone (as are bloody scrapes, grime, and wear on skaters and their boards). <\/p>\n

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My sons began playing the original Skate games from about the moment each was old enough to hold a controller. I vividly remember them cackling uncontrollably at how many bones they could break as their characters tumbled and fell, their skeletons squelching and shattering. Skate 2025 seems totally toothless in comparison. It treats its audience like babies.<\/p>\n

10 Things I Skate About You<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Skate\u2019s art style doesn\u2019t do it any favours, either. The stylised approach may be crisp and colourful, but it\u2019s also vanilla and boring. The doe-eyed, Sims-style character models do absolutely nothing for me, and this cartoony u-turn is a truly unwelcome departure from the realistic approach the series previously took. I don\u2019t like their plastic beards, or their chunky pants, and I certainly don\u2019t like being surrounded by them at all times \u2013 particularly when other players have a habit of visibly stuttering, lagging, and even floating as they move by. It\u2019s also a complete eyesore having everyone constantly clipping into each other, all plonked in front of the same shop counter \u2013 or teleporting and gathering atop the same ramp. I don\u2019t know where I start and everyone else begins. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a real sterility to the city that the simplified visual style can\u2019t shake. Plain walls, impossibly clean surfaces \u2013 San Vansterdam just isn\u2019t a place that feels legitimate or lived-in. It feels fake because it looks fake. There\u2019s not enough granular detail or texture. Hell, sometimes there\u2019s no texture at all, like when the roads appear to glitch and turn into a featureless, uniformly black surface. That happens a lot.<\/p>\n

San Vansterdam isn\u2019t all that interesting to skate around, either. The map is a largely flat downtown area, broken up into four quadrants that aren\u2019t particularly distinct from each other. You can skate across it in about two minutes. There\u2019s no zany hill descent, or dam drop, or wild spillway \u2013 nothing I\u2019m drawn to gravitate towards like I am in Skate 2\u2019s San Vanelona. There was a sense of reward in finding a neat place to skate in the original games, because the maps primarily felt like cities \u2013 not skateparks. The DNA of San Vansterdam is that everything is skatepark-adjacent. Top of a building? Skatepark. Inside a church? Skatepark. At this point, designing the city to be an unrestrained skate utopia just feels like too much \u2013 like it\u2019s a big, Tony Hawk\u2019s Pro Skater level instead of a city you can skate in. It\u2019s weird when the original Skate games were entirely antithetical to that. <\/p>\n

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Speaking of pro skaters, don\u2019t expect to see any of those old faces in the new Skate. This obviously means no cleverly edited live-action intro montage packed with recognisable skaters in silly situations. Starting with a memorable short film may have become a tradition for the original trilogy, but that idea appears to have been firmly kickflipped to curb. More disappointingly, however, it also means no pro challenges \u2013 no real-life skaters to meet and speak to as you progress through what constitutes the campaign at the moment. <\/p>\n

Could pros come to the game later in this fashion? As a live service\u2026 maybe, I guess. But I\u2019m very pessimistic they\u2019d add the same level of personality they injected into the original Skate games. Those had brief cutscenes with back and forth between the pros and your sarcastic filmer. Is John Rattray going to have a conversation with a disembodied app on a floating video camera? I doubt it.<\/p>\n